


The Daemon of Angelgard

by trashbinofdestiny



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Beauty and the Beast AU, Daemons, F/M, No Prophecy AU, some mild horror elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-12 11:10:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13546134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashbinofdestiny/pseuds/trashbinofdestiny
Summary: Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum has been abducted by the daemon that lives in Angelgard. Princess Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, his betrothed, goes to the island herself to make a bargain with the beast that has stolen the only heir to the throne of Lucis.A fill for the kinkmeme!





	1. Chapter 1

Lunafreya Nox Fleuret did not believe in miracles.

Miracles belonged to the chosen few who wandered aimless through the world, fueled by vague good-will and a tendency to spit diamonds when they spoke. Miracles belonged to the first children of first children, who bandaged the paws of daemons and lifted out swords from still pools. They belonged to people who wished on stars and stepped around rings in the grass, who listened for fairies and prayed to the gods. They didn't belong to girls who spent too much time dawdling behind clerks and royal councilmen, who asked pointed questions that were brushed aside as none of her concern. They didn't belong to the second child, fit only to be married, a footnote in a treaty that could be ratified without her. They didn't belong to the girl who stood quietly at her father's side while his breath came short, watching the fire in the grate crackle as the priests begged the gods for a cure. 

No, Luna did not believe in miracles.

Her feet were bare. A trail of cold sea water followed her through the low-roofed hall of the Angelgard ruins, settling in the cracks of the stone floor and pooling in sunken pits. Her hair curled limp in her eyes, and the damp chill that clung to her skin seemed to have crept into the walls. Just a touch had been enough to set her trembling, and her sodden dress, too cumbersome to be any use, only made it worse.

"I demand an audience with the daemon of Angelgard." Her voice echoed off the stone, far more assured and fearless than she felt. High above, a slat in the wall revealed a sliver of sky, starlight burning in the vast distance.

The answer that finally came to her almost sounded human.

"You demand?" A man's voice, spilling from the dark pit of a tunnel in the far wall. "Oh, dear, arrogance is such a disheartening thing to see in one so young."

Luna clasped her hands behind her back. "No. This is not arrogance. Two weeks ago, you stole my fiancé off his boat--"

"While he was fishing in my waters," the daemon said. "And fiancé? That wretched scrap of a man? Bless you, you poor, brave woman."

Something shifted in the shadows, and Luna stumbled back as a great creature slithered through the gap in the wall. They looked at first like a giant snake, coils as high as Luna's shoulders, scales gleaming faint purple. But their eyes were of fire, burning without heat, and the fangs that bared in the starlight were the silver of a daemon. They circled Luna, scales shushing on the floor, and she dug her nails into her palms to keep from screaming.

"Do you want your useless lover returned to you?" the daemon asked. They chuckled, a warm, human laugh, and the coils drew tighter. "Why should I cede to your demands? I caught him in my waters, fair as fair, and have kept him safe these two weeks, an honored guest in my noble hall." They laughed again. 

"I am willing to offer a trade," Luna said. The daemon's tail whipped free of the tunnel, and Luna shuddered at the sight of their body taking up nearly the whole of the chamber, a tangle of scales and stone. 

"Oh?" Two bright eyes blinked from the darkness. "What have you brought to me, oh fearless savior of lost fishermen?"

Luna took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

 

\---

 

Prince Noctis was pale in the faint light of the Angelgard beach, with hollow, dark eyes and hands that shook no matter how hard he tried to suppress it. Luna kept an arm around his waist as they slid down the pebbled slope to the water, and gasped at the surprising warmth of the sea after so long in the cool air of the ruins.

"Luna," Noctis said. "Gods, I never thought, I'm so sorry, I..."

Luna kissed his temple, just as she had when they were children, and smoothed back his filthy hair. "You couldn't have known," she said. It was a lie: Everyone knew not to venture too close to Angelgard. But Noctis was not always the most observant of princes.

Soon, he would have to learn to be.

They swam together to where the boat from Galdin was anchored, the anxious crewman at the helm ducking below the rail so as not to be seen. Noctis swam slowly, conserving his strength, occasionally pausing to lace his fingers with Luna's. He tried to help Luna into the boat first, but Luna hung back, waiting for him to drag himself up over the side.

"Come on, Luna," he said. He held out both his hands to her, stretched out over the water. Luna took one of them and squeezed his fingers.

"You are the last of your line, Noctis," Luna said. Noct's brows furrowed. "Lucis cannot lose you."

Noct tried to grip Luna's hand, but she jerked it free. "Wait," he said. "You told me you convinced him to let me go. Luna, you--"

Heavy scales brushed the back of Luna's legs. "I'm sorry, Noctis. Lucis needs their king."

"Luna, no."

Luna plunged into the sea, grasping blindly in the dark. Her hands met the rough scrape of scales, and she clutched at them, the air knocking out of her lungs as the daemon undulated beneath her. They drew her up for one dizzying, desperate gasp of air, and Luna heard her name echoing off the rocks as she was borne away from the safety of the sea, drawing ever closer to the barren shore and crumbling ruin of Angelgard. 

Luna's fingers slipped along the scales of the daemon's back, and she looked up at the wheeling dome of stars trapped between the spires of the island. That she'd return was never in doubt. There was no magic in the world that could have saved Noct without a price, no divine intervention to ease her way. She'd known from the start that all she had to offer was herself. 

She could only hope, now that it was done, that it would be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

The ruins of Angelgard did not run deep. There was a shrine, Luna was told, on the other side of the rocks, next to a spring of cold water that fed into a small grove of plum trees. There was the entrance, two rooms on either side, and a tunnel carved into the rock, shaped by the daemon themself. At the end of the tunnel was a cave, dripping with stalactites and hunks of raw crystal, into which Luna was deposited like an afterthought while the daemon curled up in the brightest corner, the purple of their scales reflecting off the glittering walls. 

Luna stood there a moment, shivering, as the daemon raised its head to the light.

"Have you clothes?" Luna asked. Her voice was swallowed by the cave, but the daemon turned their flaming eyes to her as though surprised she was still there.

"Your lover brought some down from the shrine," the daemon said. They swung their head towards a small alcove, where a lump of misshapen cloth lay crowded in the back. "He slept on them, if you can imagine. Scandalously sacrilegious. I can only hope you planned to be a secular fisherman's wife, or your marriage would have been rather short-lived."

Luna made for the alcove, peeling off her heavy white dress as she went. There was a hiss, and she turned as the daemon whirled around, the back of their hooded head facing her, coils shifting in what could almost be called embarrassment. 

"Can daemons be modest?" she asked, dropping her dress to the cave floor. "I had no notion."

"Hardly, my dear," the daemon said, though she noted that they did not turn around. "Simply give a man a warning the next time you choose to disrobe."

_A man,_ she thought. Curious.

Noctis had picked clothes for their size and warmth, not for fashion, which was more than Luna could have hoped for. She used a cotton robe to dry off as best she could, then wrapped her hair before picking out a pair of long-sleeved black robes with a thick cloth belt. She coughed when she tied them shut, and the daemon turned to her, blinking slow.

"That is the uniform of a priestess of Etro," he said. "Goddess of death."

"I'm sure she won't mind," Luna said. She dug through the pile for shoes, and the daemon uncurled from the corner, gliding towards her.

"You and your fisherman make a good match," he said. "What a shame that you'll never make a gaggle of blasphemous little brats together."

Luna said nothing, only continued to fold and adjust the pile into something more manageable.

"What did they call you, back in the world?" the daemon asked. 

"Luna." She pulled out two more robes she could use as blankets, and shook them out. "Do you have a name?"

"I was once called Ardyn," the daemon said. He was blocking Luna's path out of the alcove, his head swaying like a cobra before the strike. 

Luna sat in her makeshift bed, trying not to let her exhaustion show. The fear was still there, a sharp taste of copper on her tongue, but now that she was no longer on the move, her body was starting to cash in its debts. She crossed her legs and dragged the robes over her lap.

"What happens now?" she asked. "How long do you keep me here?"

"Until you bore me, I suppose," Ardyn said. "Or die. Your fiancé was close. Terribly dull creature--spent days cursing me and stumbling about in the dark." He lowered his head. "There are a few simple rules. No picking the flowers by the shrine. You are not to wander to my den--" he gestured to the hollow of crystals Luna had seen before-- "and by no means are you to explore the cave beyond that wall. Unless you enjoy plummeting to your death?"

"I can't say I've tried," Luna said, and the daemon let out what could have been a laugh. "If I may ask: Why the flowers?"

"They're rare enough," Ardyn said, "without a fisherman's lover crushing them underfoot." 

Luna had heard the same tone at the manor in Tenebrae, when young pages and message runners were warned not to cut through the sylleblossom gardens. _These are rare flowers,_ the steward had said, pointing severely towards the plot of land where Luna sat. _They belong to the royal family alone._ Luna had thought, then, of the time she and her betrothed had made flower crowns out of the blossoms, and her face had gone pink with shame.

She wondered now where Noctis was. Trying to jump over the edge of the boat, most likely. He had a worrying self-sacrificial streak, for an only child and scion of an ancient line. The thought that Luna, who was as much a sister to him as anyone could be, was also an expendable pawn in a larger game, would not sit well with him. He saw the value in everyone, and would have gladly ended the line of Lucis entirely for the sake of the lowest of his subjects. It made him a good man, she knew, but perhaps not the best king. 

"Ah, here comes the melancholy," Ardyn said, breaking Luna free of her thoughts. Luna glanced up, struggling to keep her eyelids from drooping. The great daemon was gliding off towards his den, tail lashing the stone. "Do warn me if you're about to start whimpering. That part becomes so dreadfully tiresome."

"I'm sure it would be, to you," Luna said, exhaustion making her bold. "You're a daemon. You've never loved anyone in your life."

"No," Ardyn said. "I have not."

 

\---

 

Luna woke to find her hair sticky and dry with salt, her feet pink with the cold, and Ardyn gone from his den. She climbed out of her nest of blankets and winced as her back protested, then started the slow, awkward climb up the tunnel. The tunnel was wider than it needed to be for a daemon of Ardyn's size, and as she heaved herself up jagged rocks and crumbling inclines, her hands sank into deep grooves made by claws that no daemonic snake could possess. 

She crawled out of the tunnel, her new robes stained with mud, to find a massive cat lounging on its back in the entrance hall. It was dark black and purple, with a reddish fringe at the ears and whiskers, and its claws shone like silver. It opened one burning eye and fixed Luna with a steady gaze.

"Oh," Luna said.

"Yes, oh," said Ardyn, closing his eye again. "You'll find that I change with the moon. When it falls, I take a new shape. Some sort of coeurl this time, I believe."

Luna inched forward. The daemon's head was almost the size of her torso, and when she lifted her hand, he opened both eyes to stare.

"What," he said, in a lazy drawl, "do you think you're doing?"

"I want to know how it feels," Luna said. "I've never met a daemon before. Does it hurt, for your body to transform like this?"

"Why on earth would it matter if it hurts?" Ardyn asked. "Of course it hurts. Have you ever rearranged your bones, reformed the structure of your cells, reallocated the mass of your--" he stopped as Luna's hand touched the bridge of his nose. 

"I had dogs at home," Luna said. Her hand trembled as she dug her fingers into Ardyn's dark fur. "They felt like this. How strange."

"I," Ardyn said, rolling away so that Luna's hand was flung back, "am no one's pet. You will keep your hands to yourself, fish-wife."

"Is that a new rule?" Luna asked. Ardyn muttered darkly, and she stepped around him, picking her way past puddles of water on her way to the exit. "No fear," she said, when he turned to watch her go. "I'm only going to the spring. To bathe," she added, when he continued to stare. "It's a thing humans do."

"Don't be gone long," Ardyn said. He rolled onto his side and flashed two rows of sharp teeth. "Or I'll be forced to intervene," he added, helpfully. 

Luna lifted her chin and dipped a perfect curtsy. "Thank you," she said. "I'll be sure to remember."

The daemon inclined his head, and Luna smiled. She marched out of the ruins with her hands clenched in her sleeves, and made it halfway around the rocks before her legs started shaking. 

The plum trees were heavy with fruit, but not quite ripe, and as Luna walked among them, she kept tripping up around wild patches of burdock, clover, and cabbage. Someone--one of Ardyn's past victims, certainly, not Noctis--must have planted them in preparation for a long stay. Surely Ardyn had no need for them. Luna wasn't sure what to do with the overgrown garden, having only a rudimentary knowledge of what happened to her food before it reached her plate. Would she boil it? How? Noctis had survived two weeks, so there must have been some way. 

The shrine was a small stone building next to the spring, with moss climbing up the side of the wall and grass growing in the eaves. Luna ducked inside and sighed: A small fireplace behind the altar had been refashioned as a cook-stove, with an old but serviceable pot. She sifted through the embers and found a few pieces of wood that looked fresh, and returned to the open air, shedding her robes at the door to the shrine.

The sun was a blessing on her skin. She sank into the cool water of the spring with a gasp, and let the rush of the current from below lift her to the surface. Perhaps there were other pools in the cave, underground lakes that glittered with crystals like a sky full of stars. If Ardyn weren't there, she might have almost been inclined to see for herself. As it was, she merely dried off and dressed in new white robes, scouring the trees for fallen branches.

The best that could be said for what she managed to boil in the pot by the altar was that it was edible, and even then, only just. Luna burned her fingers picking burdock root from the pot, forced down boiled clover, and stepped out of the shrine just as the sun began to set over the sea beyond Angelgard. 

A flash of blue caught the corner of her eye, and Luna checked the back of the shrine. Sylleblossoms bloomed there, maybe a few handfuls at most, clustered in a huddle around a circle of dead grass. Luna knelt and pushed at some of the lumps in the grass, and found dead sylleblossoms there, thick with the scent of rot. She frowned and reached for one of the living blossoms, fingers just brushing the spiked petals.

"I thought," Ardyn said from behind her, in a cold, flat voice, "I said not to pick the flowers by the shrine."

Luna turned. Ardyn towered over her, black spittle dripping from his jaws, eyes narrowed, enormous paws digging at the earth. Luna pulled away from the blossoms.

"They were dead when I got here," she said. Ardyn's gaze flicked from her to the flower bed, then back again.

"I know," he said.

"We have these flowers at home," Luna said. "I can move them, plant them somewhere with better sunlight--"

"No." Ardyn's voice came out in a snarl, and Luna felt anger creep into her heart, fierce and hot. "What do you not understand about _do not pick the flowers?_ Are you so dull, my darling fish-wife, that you would think--"

"You will not speak to me this way," Luna said, rising to her feet. Ardyn looked down on her, whiskers tilted forward in surprise.

"I can speak to you however I like," Ardyn said. "I am the master of this island--"

"And I am the future queen of Lucis," Luna said, drawing herself to her full height. "Daughter of Tenebrae and betrothed to Noctis Lucis Caelum, heir to the stone of the Lucii."


	3. Chapter 3

"Caelum?" 

A massive paw struck the earth at Luna's feet, making the sylleblossoms tremble. Luna took a step back. The daemon before her was hunched with a sudden, terrible fury, black spittle dribbling from his jaws, silver teeth flashing in a snarl.

" _Caelum?_ " he cried. Luna forced herself to stand firm, leaning back as Ardyn towered over her, the foul scent of his breath souring the sweetness of the hillside. Something spilled onto her robe, black as tar, and it burned red-hot as it fell. Luna wrenched her arm out of the sleeve, holding the rest of the robe to her chest.

"You mean to say," Ardyn said, "that I had a so-called prince of _Lucis_ in my grasp, and you waltzed in, you, with your stubbornness and pride and your gods-damned _softness,_ and you _traded him away?_ "

"Softness?" Luna whispered.

"It couldn't have been a mistake." Ardyn swung his head low, his cats eyes glowing red. "You had to've known. Did the gods arrange this?"

"No." Luna had to fall back so as not to be pushed to her knees, and braced herself against the wall of the shrine. "I don't know what you mean. Why would the gods--"

"Spare me the innocent act, my dear," Ardyn said. "You knew what it would do, to unknowingly have the scion of my tormentors slip through my fingers, then to be taunted with the promise of freedom. The gods chose well. A clever, resourceful woman," he spat the words, crushing clover under his paws, "beautiful and defiant and steeped in deceit."

"The gods had no say in this," Luna said. Her hands were clammy on the stone.

"At least," Ardyn said, hunching his shoulders, "I will have the small pleasure of killing you."

Luna ran. She raced for the grove, hoping that the trees would slow Ardyn down, lifting her robes to her knees. A dark shadow flicked to her left, and she skidded to a halt as Ardyn appeared on the other side of the grove, waiting for her.

"What did they offer you to do this?" he asked. Luna glanced to the side. There was a sheer drop there, facing the side of the ocean facing Altissia. A fall would kill her, surely, but the grove was nestled right up to the edge...

"Do you believe they'll save you?" Ardyn slowly raised a paw to one of the plum trees, and bent it with an agonizing series of cracks. "Will the gods spirit you away now that your task is done?"

Luna waited as he bent another tree, making a rough path for himself.

"Or have they abandoned you as well?"

Luna tied her robe in a knot at her side, leaving her legs free. "The gods wouldn't wake for the sake of my prayers," she said. "So I won't wait for them to make miracles for me."

Ardyn paused, bright eyes narrowing, and Luna took her chance. She ran for the cliff edge. If she grabbed the side as she fell, perhaps she'd get away with a few broken bones. And if it killed her, at least her death wouldn't have been at the hands of a daemon. She ran faster at the sound of trees snapping and crashing behind her, and the branches of the grove grew thin, giving way to the salt air. The cliff was too high--she could see the rocks lining the ground below, and the thin curve of foam--but she was going too fast to even think of turning back. She pushed off, heart in her throat, and for one breathless moment, she was suspended in the air above the beach.

Then a shadow blotted out the sky, and pinpricks of pain dug into her side as the daemon collided with her. 

She was wrapped in Ardyn's paws, his silver claws locked tight around her middle, his hind legs scrabbling as they fell. Blackness flashed in her eyes as they both struck the cliff wall, and dirt cascaded over them both when Ardyn dug his free claws into the cliffside. Then it was just a long, horrible slide, Luna's face pressed to Ardyn's warm fur as they were dashed against the rocks on their way down. 

When they landed, Ardyn hit the ground first. Even cushioned by Ardyn's body, the impact was enough to send Luna rolling across the pebbled beach, earning her own collection of bruises. She lay there for a minute, on her back with the dark blue of twilight creeping over the sky, and listened for the inevitable crunch of Ardyn rising to his feet.

It didn't come.

Slowly, wincing with every movement, Luna dragged herself to her knees. Ardyn was a dark lump on the beach, his fur ruffling in the breeze, ears twitching as his chest rose and fell in a short, shaky rhythm. 

"Ardyn?" 

He didn't answer. Luna crawled forward, stone biting her knees, and froze when the daemon shifted, rolling over on his side. His eyes were little more than embers, mouth open, blackness pooling on the earth like blood.

"The fall would have killed me without your help," Luna said. "Now it's killed you."

"I'll live." Ardyn's voice was soft. "I heal with the sun."

Luna sat. She was far enough away that Ardyn couldn't touch her, but she doubted she'd be able to run. "And when you've healed?"

"We'll see." Ardyn's shoulder rose in a sort of sideways shrug, and he closed his eyes. "You said you don't trust in the gods."

"Not in so many words," Luna said. "But... They don't really interfere in human lives. And they had no hand in my coming here."

"Did they?" There wasn't any lingering rage in Ardyn's voice. Just exhaustion, and pain, and something deeper, something Luna couldn't place. "I wonder."

They sat in silence, listening to the sea hushing on the shore, to Ardyn's ragged breaths.

"Why do you hate the Caelums?" Luna asked. 

More silence, longer this time. It became harder to hear Ardyn's breathing--Luna had to creep forward, watching his side for movement. When he spoke, it was so soft that she could barely hear over the hiss of the wind.

"I was once a Caelum," he said. 

He was one of the first. The eldest son of a new line, a bright star in his father's impressive shadow, Ardyn Lucis Caelum was there the day the crown of Lucis was forged. He fought at his father's side in the first campaign to secure their borders, stood at his right hand when the necessary orders of execution had to be made, and sighed in regret when his younger brother skipped out of lessons to read poetry or speak with foreign philosophers.

There really was no helping the boy. His younger brother was always buckling under the weight of their father's disappointment, and Ardyn had to come up with more and more excuses as to why he wasn't at this treaty signing or that sword lesson, gritting his teeth through the consequences while his brother puttered about in the gardens. 

Then, on the night their father finally passed, alone in the rooms his conquests had built, Ardyn was roused by a knock on the door.

He opened it to an old woman in a filthy black shawl, holding a basket of strange, spiny blue flowers.

"A blossom," she said, holding out a gnarled, twisted hand, "and a night in your finest rooms, and I will give you the key to peace everlasting."

"Good gods," Ardyn said, and slammed the door in her face. The number of would-be soothsayers during his father's illness were still rising, it seemed. He turned to the dark, empty hall. He would be king in the morning, his brother was refusing to leave his rooms, and none of the servants would touch his father's stiffening body. There was work to be done. He was ten paces across the hall when the door knocked again.

"A blossom," the woman said, holding that hideous blue flower in both hands, "and your finest wine, and I will give you the key to wisdom that will not fade."

A second time, Ardyn shut the door in her face.

When she knocked again, Ardyn ordered his guards to escort her out. But none came. Instead, he saw his brother, barefoot in his nightgown, padding silently across the stone floor.

The woman nodded. "A blossom," she croaked, "and your dearest love, and I will make you king."

"I'm already king," Ardyn said, and grabbed her arm to drag her off the threshold himself.

"Come out of the cold," his brother said. 

The woman smiled, and her age fell from her like a sheet of rain obscuring the city, standing before them beautiful and terrible and glowing with the heat of a sun. Her gaze lit on Ardyn's brother.

"You," she said, and he dropped to his knees. Ardyn was fixed in place, his hand going purple and blue where it touched her skin. She extended her free hand.

"You, who would take me in and accept nothing in return, will be the king of kings, the bringer of light to a world gone dark. But this power must come at a price."

"Anything," Ardyn's brother said.

"No," said Ardyn, but his voice was lost, low and muffled in the grand hall.

"Your greatest love," the goddess said. Ardyn's brother looked at him, then, and Ardyn knew that he was already lost, bargained off for a new and glorious future.

"Damn you," he said, and his brother winced. "Damn you. You're as bad as father, you--"

Then the goddess turned her lovely, perfect face to Ardyn, and darkness consumed him.

\---

Luna skimmed her hands over the salt-slick pebbles of the beach. Before her, the daemon that was Ardyn had curled on his side, gasping blood into the beach. Some of it trickled by, a black stream rolling towards the ocean. The moon was sinking, now, a few inches from the horizon, and the stars were starting to dim.

"And here we are," Ardyn said at last. 

"They meant you to stay this way forever?" Luna asked. Ardyn gave another weak, low shrug.

"Essentially. They did give me one option."

"What option?" Luna asked.

Ardyn's eyes opened, glancing her way. "Something impossible," he said. 

Luna thought of being trapped on the island for two thousand years, being remade every morning, with only a vague, impossible hope. What was it Ardyn had told her, when he thought her to be a vassal of the gods? That she had taunted him with freedom?

But why, then? Where did she fit in this?

"I assume you can't leave," she said.

"No," Ardyn said. "No, I cannot." He still watched her, unblinking, blood spilling from his gums. "You said you're from Tenebrae. What is Tenebrae?"

"A... a country," Luna said. "Between Lucis and Niflheim. They call us the Bridge."

"And?" Ardyn was breathing heavily. "I think I've been there. Once. There were rocks, hanging in the air..."

"The Grey Mountains," Luna said. She inched closer still, and lay a hand on Ardyn's side, feeling the stutter of his heartbeat. "They built the royal manor there."

"And will they miss you?" Ardyn asked.

"Terribly." Luna ran her fingers through his fur. "But the kingdom will continue without me."

"There, at least, we have something in common," Ardyn said.

Luna looked to the horizon.

"Dawn's coming," she said, but Ardyn didn't answer. When she looked back to him, his eyes were closed, his head pillowed on sore, swollen paws, sleeping soundly under her tentative touch.


End file.
